WH: Not Obama's Job to Comment on Weiner, Filner

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney explained that President Obama had not commented on the sex scandals involving San Diego Mayor Bob Filner or New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner because “his job is not to comment on those issues, but to focus on what he can do to get this economy growing faster and creating more jobs.”

Carney was specifically asked whether Obama had an obligation to speak out on the issue of sexual harassment given his criticism of the military’s sexual harassment policy. “No,” said Carney. “The president is focused on what we can do for the middle class in this country.”

As for Weiner, Carney stated, “We just have no comment on it.”

The President has routinely commented on stories in the news over the past several years, from the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates (Obama said the Cambridge police acted “stupidly,” creating a blowback culminating in the infamous “Beer Summit”) to the case of Trayvon Martin (Obama originally said if he had a son, the son would look like Trayvon). In fact, Obama even weighed in on Anthony Weiner back in 2011, when he said that Weiner had “embarrassed himself…embarrassed his wife and his family.”